How did French colonial policy affect the use of Indigenous languages in Gabon?

French colonial policy significantly marginalized Indigenous languages in Gabon by prioritizing the promotion of the French language. While Christian missionaries in the 19th century transliterated several Bantu languages into the Latin alphabet to create religious texts, French colonial authorities actively restricted the use of these languages to religious instruction. This policy effectively inhibited the development of secular literature in Indigenous tongues.

Concurrently, the colonial administration implemented extensive efforts to teach French, which eventually became the country's official working language. This linguistic shift was reinforced through an educational system modeled on that of France, where French remains the sole medium of instruction today. As a result of these historical policies, the use of Indigenous languages in formal and literary contexts was suppressed, while French became the dominant language for communication, administration, and contemporary expression among the Gabonese people.12